


Intro to Beard Grooming and Sartorial Extraction

by wiltedviolets



Series: Studies in Domestic Cohabitation [1]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: M/M, spoilers through 4.10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 00:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wiltedviolets/pseuds/wiltedviolets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Britta is starting to suspect that Troy might be using her as a beard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intro to Beard Grooming and Sartorial Extraction

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first Community fic I've written, so I apologize for any characterization issues or continuity issues. Any and all crit is appreciated.
> 
> This fic is canon compliant through episode 4.10.

Britta prides herself on being a modern, open-minded woman. The kind of woman who wouldn’t, for example, make assumptions about a man’s sexuality because he would rather spend time with his best friend than his girlfriend, even if one time she might have walked in on them cuddling during a Batman: The Animated Series marathon. If Troy and Abed are more comfortable with each other than would be considered normal for two heterosexual males, it only stands as a testament to the strength of their friendship.

Except recently Troy seems to be blowing her off more and more in favor of Abed. She’s been pretty cool about it for the most part, she thinks. Britta is a pretty low maintenance girlfriend, and honestly, she finds it sweet the way Troy looks after Abed, but she’s starting to feel like she’s more invested in their relationship than Troy, and considering that Britta navigates all relationships with one foot out the door, she thinks that’s probably not a good sign for them as a couple.

Like, for example, right now. Britta has been under the covers in her underwear for half an hour now, while Troy leans against the headboard of the bed on his phone. And it’s not like Britta is a stranger to men texting in bed -- she did sort of spend her first two years at Greendale sleeping with Jeff on and off -- but with Jeff it usually happened _after_ the sex, which Britta never minded because sex makes people sweaty and nothing is more disgusting than sweaty cuddling.

Right now, though, Britta is horny, and when she tried to kiss Troy he told her to “hold on just a sec” because he and Abed were talking about Ultimate Spider-Man. That was over twenty minutes ago. 

“Hey, Troy,” she says. “I think I’m starting to get sleepy.”

“Oh.” Troy glances back over at her. “Do you want me to turn my sound off? I know it probably gets pretty annoying when Abed sends those messages that are like six texts long and the noise keeps going off over and over again.” Troy gives her that goofy little grin, the one she’s started referring to in her head as The Abed Grin, because she only ever sees it when Troy is thinking about Abed.

“Um,” she says, because her brain is running a thousand miles a minute and she really needs to clear her head. “Yeah, thanks. Just let me go brush my teeth.” She’s already brushed her teeth -- she brushed them more than half an hour ago when she got undressed -- but if Troy notices, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t look up as she slips out.

She gives herself a few cold splashes of water to the face in the sink, then stares long and hard at herself in the mirror. She needs to talk to Troy -- to figure out what exactly is going on between them, because it sure as hell doesn’t feel like a relationship -- but Britta is patently bad at having relationship talks and even worse at instigating them, and she’s trying really hard to think of a subtle way to ask _Are you secretly in love with your best friend and using me as a beard?_ when she hears a knock on the door.

“Britta, can you hurry up? I have to pee.” 

Britta groans. “Just a second, Abed,” she calls back. She splashes cold water on her face one more time. She’s still in her underwear, but Britta doesn’t actually care that much and she’s pretty sure Abed doesn’t either. 

When she opens the door, Abed is standing right in front of the doorway in the same oversized flannel pajamas that he always wears, giving her that wide-eyed, intense stare that always makes her feel like he’s trying to read her mind.

“You weren’t brushing your teeth,” Abed says, his head quirking to one side.

“Excuse me?”

“Troy said you were brushing your teeth,” he says, apparently taking her ‘excuse me’ as a request for clarification, “but I didn’t hear you use a toothbrush. Also you brushed your teeth forty-five minutes ago and you only brush your teeth twice when you’ve been having sex, and I know you haven’t been because Troy’s been texting me. Also because you guys are always really loud.”

“Abed, first of all, I can’t help it if Troy’s a screamer, and second, I really don’t want to talk about it, so can you please just let it go? I’m tired.”

Abed looks contemplative for a moment, then takes a step back to let Britta pass. “Okay. But if you ate all of the bathroom grapes, you’re responsible for refilling them.”

Britta stops, because some things are just too weird to ignore. “Wait, I thought you guys did olives in your bathroom, not grapes?”

“We used to, but Troy and I don’t actually like olives and Annie won’t eat anything that’s been in the bathroom, so we changed it to grapes.” Abed glances past Britta toward the toilet. “Are we done talking? I really have to pee.”

-

Abed stops their conversation -- which had bounced back and forth between Ultimate Spider-man and Young Avengers and briefly to Batman & Robin -- to say that he has to use the bathroom, which means Britta is probably on her way back.

He hooks his phone onto the charger on his nightstand, and right on cue, the door opens and Britta slinks inside, giving him that weary smile she sometimes gives when she has bad news.

“Hey, Troy?” she says. “Can we... talk?” Troy feels his stomach start twisting in on itself. He’s seen enough sitcoms to know that’s basically code for ‘we’re breaking up’.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, because he doesn’t actually have any choice. “What’s up?”

Britta slowly pulls herself onto the bed and folds her legs underneath her. She faces Troy, taking one of his hands in hers, and Troy has no idea where this is going but it can’t be anywhere good. “Troy,” she starts, “I’m going to ask you something. And I promise to not be upset no matter what your answer is, but you have to tell me the truth, okay?”

Britta takes a deep breath. Troy doesn’t breath at all.

“Are you in love with Abed?” she asks, perfectly straight-faced, and he wants to laugh, wants to pretend it’s some big joke like he could have if she’d been Jeff or Pierce, but this is Britta and she’s dead serious, so as it is, he mostly just feels like throwing up.

“I’m not gay,” he says, when he finally finds his voice.

“That’s not--” 

“Hang on. Let me finish.” He closes his eyes because he thinks the room is maybe starting to spin a little bit and his ears are doing that weird underwater thing where they feel like they’re going to pop, but this is Britta. And as judgey as Britta gets over weird things, like whether someone drinks water from disposable bottles or gets their pets spayed, he thinks this is maybe something he can count on her to be understanding about.

He tries again. “I’m not gay. I’m attracted to girls, but I’m kind of attracted to guys sometimes, too. Except I’m pretty sure if I ever dated a guy and my mom found out, she would lock me up in her basement with nothing but some stale bread and a stack of Watchtowers for the rest of my life, so I figured I’d just ignore it and date girls and it would go away.” He thinks his hand is probably shaking in Britta’s.

“It didn’t work,” Britta says. It’s not a question.

“It did until I met Abed, but now when I try to think about getting married to some girl and moving out and leaving Abed, it makes me feel like something crawled inside my stomach and died.”

“Does Abed know?” Britta asks, and god, as if Troy didn’t want to throw up enough already.

“I dunno. I haven’t told him.” He forces himself to open his eyes again, and Britta is staring at him with the most heart-wrenching look of pity he’s ever seen her give anything that wasn’t a cat. “Abed knows a lot of stuff about me I haven’t told him, though, so maybe he already knows.”

Britta’s got that little glint in her eye, the one she gets when she’s found some new cause. “Troy, you have to talk to him,” she says, squeezing his hand so tight that she’s starting to cut off the circulation in his fingers. “You have to tell him how you feel.”

“Okay, Britta that’s probably the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.” Troy pulls his hand back from hers, trying to massage the feeling back into it. “I don’t even know if Abed likes guys. What am I supposed to do, go out there and tell him I love him and I want to have his babies?”

“First of all, you said both of those things to him last year,” Britta points out, and yeah, okay, she kind of has him there. “And second, this is Abed. He’s basically immune to awkward social situations. The worst that could happen is he’ll say ‘no thank-you’ and ask you if you want to watch Inspector Spacetime with him in his blanket fort.”

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Troy says, because he’s been thinking it basically since the conversation started and the more he thinks about possibly talking to Abed the more true it feels.

“Troy, look at me,” she says. Troy does, and surprisingly, it helps a little. “You can do this.”

Troy’s not as sure, but Britta’s actually right about one thing. The worst case scenario, if he chickens out at the last minute, or if Abed tells him no, he can suggest a late night movie marathon and Abed will probably let him snuggle up with him on the bottom bunk if Troy mentions being cold a few times. Abed never judges him when he gets too touchy-feely. Abed is awesome like that.

“Okay, let’s assume I do go out there and he says yes,” he says. “My mom is a Jehovah’s Witness. If I told her I was dating Abed, she would literally never talk to me again. Literally.”

“Troy, if you can look me in the eyes and tell me you’d rather pretend to be straight for the rest of your life than go out with Abed, I promise I will shut up and never mention this again.”

Troy sighs, because just this once, Britta is actually probably right. 

Troy gets to the door, stops, then turns and looks back at Britta. “Just so we’re clear,” he says, “this is you trying to get me and Abed together and not you trying to get me to recruit Abed for a threesome or something, right?”

“Duh-doy,” Britta says. “Though I wouldn’t be opposed to a threesome, because that actually sounds pretty hot. Just, you know, putting it out there.”

Troy laughs a little in spite of himself. “I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks, Britta.”

\--

Troy can tell Abed’s back in the blanket fort because he can hear the tell-tale signs of Inspector Spacetime playing from his computer. He feels a brief pang of nostalgia because a year ago he would have been in there with him, huddled up together on the bottom bunk. He’d been eager to get out because he thought that it might make things easier, thought that being in a relationship with Britta and not sleeping so close to Abed would make his feelings ebb away, but if anything he’s just been more miserable.

“Hey, Abed?” Troy calls, and it sucks a little because he remembers a time when he wouldn’t have felt awkward just walking right in. “Is it okay if I come in?”

“It’s okay with me,” he says.

Troy ducks inside, and Abed pauses Inspector Spacetime and scoots over to give Troy room to sit. He’s wearing his pajama bottoms but he’s shirtless, which had felt fine when he was in the bedroom with Britta, but now that he’s here and Abed’s eyes are raking over him -- because of course Abed can tell something’s up -- he feels practically naked. Which is extra ridiculous, because Abed has seen him naked before.

“Are you fighting with Britta?” Abed asks. “Sitcom custom suggests that you spend the night on the couch, but I suppose I could break tradition and let you sleep in the bunk bed.”

“What?” Troy stares at him for a second, then laughs. “No, Abed, I’m not fighting with Britta. But I think we might kind of be broken up now?”

“Oh.” Abed cocks his head to one side, considering that for a moment. “Did you want to talk about it?”

Troy shakes his head. “Nah, Britta and I are cool. It just wasn’t working.”

“Cool. Cool cool cool.” Abed unpauses the laptop. “You can sleep in here anyway if you want.”

It hits him then -- really, really hits him -- that he doesn’t have to go through with this. He and Abed could go back to the way things were before he moved out of the blanket fort, being weirdly close and never actually dating anyone but totally (mostly) platonic. Britta might get irritated at him for not going through with it, but Britta gets irritated about a lot of the things he does, and he’s pretty sure it would make Abed happy. He has no idea what to do.

“You keep staring at me,” Abed says, not bothering to look away from the screen. “That usually means either you want to talk about something or I have something on my face.”

“Abed?” Troy feels his throat tighten.

“You want to talk.” Abed pauses the episode again. “What do you want to talk about?”

Troy wishes he’d been planning this longer, wishes that he could have done something cool like holding a boombox outside the blanket fort. But this is Abed, who he promised three years ago never to lie to, and who he’s pretty sure wouldn’t stop wanting to be his friend just because Troy admitted to liking him as more than a friend. He figures he might as well just plunge in head first and fuck the consequences.

“Britta and I aren’t together because... because she asked me if I was in love with you,” he says, slowly. 

“Are you in love with me?” Abed asks, looking back up at Troy.

“If I say yes, will you still let me sleep on the top bunk?”

“You can sleep wherever you want,” Abed says. He slides back and squishes himself into the corner, against the pillows and under the covers, and pulls the laptop onto his knees. At first Troy thinks Abed is dismissing him, but then Abed says, “We can cuddle if you want to. You’re always falling asleep on me when we watch things in the blanket fort.”

“I love you,” Troy says, and Abed, without missing a beat, replies in perfect Han Solo voice, “I know.” Troy crawls under the covers and pillows his head on Abed’s chest.

“It’s a good thing you aren’t going back to your room.” Abed glances over at the door to Troy’s bedroom. “I can hear Britta snoring.”

Troy goes quiet, and sure enough, he can hear it too. It’s okay, though. It’s late, and Troy’s kind of really thankful for Britta right now, so he doesn’t mind if she steals his bed tonight.

“Hey, Abed?” Troy asks. “Are we dating now?”

“Technically, I think to be dating we having to have gone on a date,” Abed points out.

“Abed, we’ve gone for dinner and a movie like, a hundred times. We went to see Warm Bodies on Valentine’s Day.”

“Yes, but neither of us had declared romantic interest,” Abed says. “It doesn’t count.”

“Okay, well...” Troy thinks for a moment. “Well, why don’t we call this a date?”

“It’s a bit unconventional, but I suppose I could work with it. We probably need something more romantic than Inspector Spacetime, though.” Abed pauses, and Troy can practically see him scanning his brain for something more suitable. “How about The Wrath of Khan?”

“It’s a date,” Troy says, and Abed smiles.


End file.
